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English Literature Journals
Please share your experiences working with these journals! Feel free to add other journals to the list. Try to stick with this format: each journal should be separated by dashes, and responses under each journal should each have their own bullet. *I moved Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Exemplaria, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, MFS, Modernism/Modernity, New Literary History, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, PMLA, Renaissance Quarterly, Representations and Speculum to the Comparative Literature/Theory page, since they do not focus exclusively on English literature. Back to Literary Studies Journals ---- ''ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews'' *This journal has a very fast turnaround time. Highly recommend. *Things seem to have changed since the time of the previous post. I submitted using the online system and have not heard a peep from the editor, who does not respond to my inquiries. Yes, you can track the progress of submitted articles online, but all I can see is that it has been "under review" for over five months. ---- ''Ben Jonson Journal'' *Article submitted on June 19. Accepted with suggested revisions on June 27. Resubmitted with revisions on July 10. Received copyedited text on July 27. Everything was extremely fast, kind and professional. Paper will be published in the November issue. Proof received mid-August. Highly recommended journal. ---- ''Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation'' * ---- ''Byron Journal'' * ---- ''Cahiers Élisabéthains'' *As a play review contributor, the process was easy and well-managed. *I submitted an article and received an acceptance very quickly. The reviewer's requests for revision were very reasonable and helpful, and the senior editor is very communicative and friendly. ---- ''Chaucer Review'' *Quick turnaround (less than 4 months)--a revise and resubmit. Revised according to editors' and readers' suggestions, returned essay less than 4 months later, was rejected. Revise and resubmits are apparently sent to a third reader who hasn't seen the earlier essay or the previous readers' comments, so be careful about how you revise. *Submission was acknowledged the day they received the manuscript (per the postal tracking data). Editors' and reader's reports (acceptance with minor revisions) arrived ten weeks later. The editors clearly explained which of the reader's suggestions to follow. Revised work was accepted in under a month, so the total time from submission to final acceptance (bearing in mind my revision time) was almost exactly four months. Editors have been extremely professional and helpful. They have provided useful information on copy-editing, volume and issue number, and the rest of the process. If everything goes according to plan, total time from submission to publication will be eighteen months. ---- ''Early Modern Literary Studies'' *Probably 3 months from submission to decision, and good, decently detailed and helpful reports. *Did you get a confirmation of your submission when you sent it in originally? *2013: I have had a submission with them for almost a year and have not heard anything, not even a confirmation. *2013: I also didn't hear anything for 15 months (I submitted in 2012), and when I heard back, they asked me to re-submit entirely *I submitted something a couple years ago. I got very fast and generally positive reports (a couple of weeks, as I recall). So I made some minor changes, sent the ms back promptly with a few questions for the editors, and...heard nothing at all. I was never even really clear if the piece had been accepted or not. I made a few email inquiries as the months wore on and was mostly ignored (as in, I didn't get any response at all). Then my piece was suddenly published about a year after submission. My general impression is that things were quite disorganized there at the time. I think there may be new editors now, so perhaps things are running more smoothly. ---- ''Early Modern Studies Journal'' (was'' Early English Studies'') *Fast turnaround but my article was copyedited by a grad student who was completely cluless as to both editing standards and the field of study. I finally had to request a faculty editor. *Was accepted for the 2012 issue, but they've been having "website problems." It's been six months since the publication was scheduled to apperar. -Never received a response as to whether they received my submission. I resubmitted 6 months later explaining that I hadn't heard from them and assumed they overlooked my submission. Again, I never heard a peep, so I submitted somewhere else. ''English'' (Oxford journal) * ---- ''ELH: English Literary History'' *Submitted an article in May 2011 and received a rejection in December 2011. The editor shared only the reader's suggestion that the article would be appropriate for a more specialized journal. *Submitted an article in June 2011 and received email notice of acceptance in September 2011 (on a weekend!). Article was accepted as submitted, no revisions were requested (although I do understand from others that it is common for'' ELH'' to request some revisions before final acceptance). No reader reports were provided, but it is my understanding that ELH ''does not usually provide reader comments (part of the reason why they have a quick turn-around time). Was told to expect 12-18 months between submission of final article manuscript and publication. **Update: There was a longer delay than originally promised, and the essay is now set appear in a 2013 issue (luckily I was not in a position to need the article in print quickly). Although I was not orginally asked for revisions, the text was fairly heavily copy-edited when it was returned to me for review (most suggested edits were sensible and welcome). I understand that this journal has recently changed editors and I believe that has been affecting the process somewhat, but the new editor now seems to be well on the way to having things back on track. *Received rejection about three months after submission, with brief (one sentence) but helpful statement about reasons for rejection. *Rejection three months from submission; as in the cases of the posters above, the response came on a weekend, and with the suggestion that I send it to a more specialized journal. *Rejection three months from submission. No reasons, no readers' reports. *Rejection after 3 months from an associate editors. Same as above: no reasons, no readers' reports. *Rejection after 4 months from senior editor, with an attached reviewer's paragraph explaining rejection. *Submitted an article in September 2012 and received very encouraging "minor revision" requests in November. Got the piece back by December and received much more involved "major revision" requests in January. Got the piece back to them by February and received an acceptance in early April 2013, with a long list of final "highly suggested" changes to the piece. So, ''ELH clearly does engage in very meticulous and involved cycles of revision from time to time, though I believe my experience (in particular, a "major" revision that followed a "minor" revision) was somewhat unique. Still, if you can get your foot in the door with a minor/major revision request, they may be one of the best journals for improving a piece quickly and efficiently, because the comments are quite detailed, and they turn drafts around like lightning. Another reason they are good for this is that you work only with one reader across all revisions; your revisions always go back to the same person. This removes the annoyance of having a wild-card second (or third) reader involved in later stages of revision. Responses always came on Saturdays. *Submitted article in early July 2011. Acceptance 8 weeks later via email (on Saturday!), with no reader's reports. Email noted there had been only one reader. Was told they typically take 18 months or less to get articles published, but because of a growing backlog and change in editor, it's now about 2 years. *Rejection almost exactly three months after submission with suggestion that I send it to a more specialized journal. *Rejection three months after submission, no comments, no readers' reports, no response to email inquiry about any possible feedback. *Rejection from senior editor one month after submission. No reasons or readers' reports. *Rejection several months after submitting, with only an irritating comment, presumably passed on from the reader (also on the board), to read her (!) work on the subject. ---- ''ELN: English Language Notes * ---- ''ELR: English Literary Renaissance *Submitted an article in 2008 or so, got a positive rejection letter with 2 good readers' reports w/in 6 mos. Then in 2010, emailed the editor to see if they would be willing to read a new version of the essay. They said yes, so I sent it in sometime over the 2010-2011 Winter break.. Received word in April or May 2011 that they liked my essay but had not been able to decide if they wished to include it, and that they would be in touch in the fall. Sept. 2011 they email me to say that they have accepted the article for publication in the 2013 volume, and included 2 reader's reports with suggestions for revision. *Submitted an article in Oct. 2011, and received a prompt confirmation letter that they had received it. Now it's practically August 2012 and I've heard nothing from the journal. Sent the editor an e-mail over a month ago politely requesting a status update and updating my contact info because I've changed institutions. I did not receive a reply to this e-mail, and am now unsure what to do. Send another e-mail? A colleague suggested that I call the journal, but I'm hesitant to do this. *To the above: I've been given to understand that e-mail is defnitely not the best way to contact the editor at this journal. I was in a similar situation, and I was advised to snail mail, and I got prompt responses. **Thanks -- I will try snail mail. **Update: Received a rejection originially mailed to my old institution months ago (not quite sure why I never received it) after requesting an update via snail mail. The two readers' reports will be useful for revisions, but I can't read them in entirety because they were sloppily photocopied (the originals must be lost in the mail somwhere). I don't think anyone is to blame for the snafu, but it's a little frustrating that I could have revised the article and submitted it somewhere else weeks or even months ago. Lesson to anyone submitting to this journal (confirming above advice): DO NOT COMMUNICATE WITH THIS JOURNAL VIA E-MAIL! *My experience was that they were completely unprofessional. Long (six month?) wait for any cofirmation that the article had even been sent to readers, then they took a couple more months to reject the article. One reader rejected the article but had clearly, even humorously, not read the essay very carefully, if at all. This turned out to be a joke and waste of my time. *I sent an article back in 2008, and although I got a fairly prompt typed-written notification that they had received the article, it took 9 months for me to get back a single reader's report where the reader didn't even get my name right (gave me 3 different last names at various points) and basically didn't say anything about the argument, research, structure, etc. Instead, the reader quibbled with the wording of one of my footnotes for a few paragraphs. I submitted originally because I heard that they provided careful and thoughtful readers' reports, but this was not my experience at all. *I submitted an article in June 2012 and received a rejection in November 2012, accompanied by two cursory and condescending readers' responses. As noted above, it was clear that they hadn't read the submission carefully, and maybe hadn't even gotten beyond the introduction. The rationale for rejection was that that argument wasn't appropriate to the journal; fair enough, but why take 5 months to determine that? I won't be submitting here again. ---- ''English Studies'' *Not sure it should be in this section; they publish work on any literature in English (as well as lots of linguistics work), not just that from England. **Point taken. However, given its title and focus, the journal probably belongs here more than any other page (one could make a similar point about ELH, for example, but there's not been a debate about keeping it on this page). "Comparative" tends to refer to journals that also publish work on literature and/or theory from non-English language traditions, which are explicitly excluded in this journal's focus on "the language, literature, and culture of the English-speaking world from the Anglo-Saxon to the present day." It could also be posted on the "Postcolonial" or "American" pages, but those categories don't seem to do justice to the journal's breadth, either. I think someone looking to find or share information about this journal would probably check this page first, and, however imperfect, it's more helpful to keep all the comments on one page rather than cross-posting across several pages. ---- ''The Explicator'' * ---- ''James Joyce Quarterly'' * Very slow. * Yeah, they're a little slow, but very professional. Got terrific reader's reports, including a very helpful cover letter from the editor, and excellent copy-editing on the back end. In this case, the slowness seems to be due to care and diligence. Very positive experience. ---- Journal of English and Germanic Philology (JEGP) *Was asked to write a book review; then they didn't send me the book until nearly the deadline. Disorganized! ---- ''Journal of the Wooden O Symposium'' * ---- ''Keats-Shelley Journal'' * ---- ''Milton Quarterly'' *Submitted an article for review in August, 2011. As of March 2012, no word. Contacted editor in July 2012; was told that they were still waiting on one of the reader's reports. No contact since then. Emailed in Sept 2012 to check up on status. Currently awaiting response. *Positive experience here. Submitted article in early 2011, received detailed notes from reader and editor, re-submitted with final publication occurring in late 2011. I did take some emailing to nudge the process along, but in the end it did not seem unreasonable. ---- ''Milton Studies'' *I had a very positive experience with this journal as both an author and (on one occasion) a reviewer, but that was under Al Labriola, so I can't comment on the current review process. I hope it remains as thoughtful and efficient. ---- ''Nineteenth-Century Contexts'' *Frustrating experience with this journal. Submitted an article, and then after checking in and receiving non-committal responses from managing editor after six and nine months, finally withdrew article after a year. Got a non-committal response to my request for withdrawal, promising that the editor would get back to me shortly (even though I no longer cared, as I was withdrawing). Editor still never got back to me. *I had a very similar experience. ---- ''Nineteenth-Century Prose'' * ---- ''Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal'' * ---- ''Notes and Queries'' *One-sentence rejection email with no explanation for rejection and no commentary on emailed submission. 3 month review period. *Submitted an article in August 2006, received an acceptance in January 2007. No commentary or feedback, but an acceptance. The publication process was quick, efficient, and professional: my note was published within 7 months of acceptance. *Submitted article mid-April 2013, received acceptance mid-July. As above, no feedback. Article is scheduled to be published in December, five months from acceptance. ---- ''Review of English Studies'' *Article submitted received a revise-and-resubmit exactly one month later; I was very happy with the turn-around time. Comments from period editor were useful and polite; comments from outside reader were a mix of useful and condescending. After revising, the outside reader again required more revisions three months later. The tone of his/her comments was again sarcastic and several of the suggestions were truly ill-advised (calling for poor stylistic changes and factually incorrect changes). After selectively revising a second time and resubmitting, I was notified within two weeks that the piece was accepted. Be aware that Oxford journals use an online submission system that is cumbersome, form heavy, and often cryptic. *Annual RES best graduate student essay prize is worth noting. If you are a graduate student submitting to RES, it is certainly worth a shot: I was lucky enough to win it a few years back and found that it gave my essay a higher profile on my cv, which can't hurt. Like another poster above, I found the turn-around prompt. *Submitted article for essay prize; received very quick, kind rejection note with helpful feedback. *Submitted an article and received a rejection about 2 months later. It was a quick turn-around, and the rejection was really polite and for the most part, useful. The 1st reviewer had much positive feedback and seemed enthusiastic about publishing the piece, but the 2nd reviewer wasn't so enthusiastic. He/she was a bit condescending in tone and it became apparant that he/she failed to read the article closely. He/she mentioned that the work was admirable and hoped that I continued work in the area I had written on, but criticized the fact that I hadn't included discussion or even a passing reference to another scholar's previous work on a theme discussed in the paper. If he/she had read my article closely he/she would have seen that I referred to and discussed the scholar in question on the very first page of my article (and had a reference in footnote #1). Fair enough. I wish a rewrite and resubmit was offered, but the editor mentioned that they receive a large number of articles and can only accept a small few. The period-editor listed a number of highly rated journals that will probably consider the article --- once I consider the reviewers remarks. I am not put off by the rejection, just annoyed by some of the unwarranted feedback from one reviewer. Still, I hope to submit again in the future, as the overall experience with RES has been positive. ---- ''Romanticism'' * ---- ''SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900'' *I have not submitted here, but I have heard from others that SEL can take a verryyy looonnng time to get back to you with a response (like over a year). *My submission was accepted exactly 4 months after it was received, as indicated on their website. Over two years before it's slated for publication, but that's because it's basically an annual (SEL's four annual issues each cover a different sub-field). Based on my experience, I would highly recommend submitting here as long as you don't mind a long wait between acceptance and publication. *I had an article under review at this journal for 2 years. I kept in touch with the editor, who kept promising that he's have something for me shortly. Eventually, I withdrew the publication. *Received a timely (ie: exactly 4 month) rejection. Be aware, however, for those who work in the early modern period: one of their reviewers uses scholarship from the 1930s and Google searches in order to vet information in submissions (which presents a real problem if you are offering them newly discovered material that contradicts older scholarship). You may want to save yourself the 4 months and send it to somewhere with a more relevant and up-to-date slate of readers. *Received a timely (4 month) request to revise and resubmit, together with a detailed and extraordinarily helpful reader report. Received a timely acceptance after revision. Great experience; kind, courteous, professional people. *I also had a long (1 year +) wait. Revise & Resubmit, but one of the reader reports was a thinly veiled ad hominem attack and not constructive at all. Would not recommend submitting here. *I submitted once (can we say how unfun paper submission is versus online?) and got a very quick (